GOODWILL ONLINE BUYING SOFTWARE

They face fierce competition from ThredUp and other resellers including Poshmark and TheRealReal, all of which have much larger budgets for marketing, software engineering and customer service. “Where our work needs to happen is around optimizing the experience so we can convert more of that traffic into shoppers,” says Orange County’s Suydam, who said a mobile app is coming this year. While it draws millions to the site, only a fraction end up purchasing something. It’s now working to modernize the look and feel of the site, with plans to improve the search function and leverage previous browsing history to give product recommendations. It sometimes turns to a third-party to authenticate an item before listing it online. Some locations have invested in pricey, $15,000 machines to determine whether jewelry headed for the website contains real gold, silver or precious gems. Goodwill often trains staff to performs basic authentication for higher-priced items, looking for tell-tale signs of counterfeiting, such as uneven stitching or inconsistencies with the label. The average sale is $35 and its top-selling categories are jewelry, clothing and accessories, electronics, collectibles and toys. A 4 carat diamond ring that fetched $16,989. Other notable sales: A 2006 Dusky boat that sold for $19,500. The painting sold for $165,000 and still holds the title as the most expensive item the organization has ever sold. “I was at the library with my kids that evening and was getting calls that it was at $75,000,” says Hannam, now CEO of Goodwill Industries of Columbia Willamette, which runs 51 stores in Oregon and southern Washington. It turns out it was a painting by Frank Weston Benson, an acclaimed American artist from Salem, Massachusetts, according to an authenticator that Goodwill brought in. Employees, instructed to scoop up any original artwork, listed it online and within a few hours it had been bid up to $500. One day a year into the new effort, a small watercolor painting was dropped off at a location in the northeastern part of the city, which typically received 250 to 300 donations a day. In 2005, she began helping list items donated to the stores she oversaw in Portland, Oregon.

Goodwill of Orange County/ Brocoff PhotographyĬathy Hannam was one such store manager who responded to the call. Its top three categories: Jewelry, clothing and accessories and electronics.

Workers are trained to photograph and list items for sale online.

Goodwill online buying